Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg will soon become world wealthiest person

If Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg will keep growing at the current pace, soon he will become world richest person leaving behind legends like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

Facebook’s Q2 2014 earnings just came to light, and Zuckerberg’s worth increased $1.6 billion beyond his financial worth prior to Facebook’s earnings report. The social media company had Wall Street expectations to soar to $2.81 billion, but Facebook soared to $2.91 billion with an increase in sales of 61 percent. In a Bloomberg interview, Facebook Effect author David Kirkpatrick said that Zuckerberg is “just getting started. He’s going to become the richest person on the planet.”

With Zuckerberg’s rise in financial worth to $33.3 billion, he’s now in front of Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin as well as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos at just 30 years old. Zuckerberg’s ranked at no. 16, followed by Page and Brin (nos. 17 and 18).

Facebook purchased text messaging company WhatsApp earlier this Spring, with stern warning from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to respect the WhatsApp privacy policy that was in place before the acquisition. In recent weeks, the social media company’s been at the center of a controversy regarding a social experiment it performed on 700,000 unsuspecting users before implementing any language of the sort into its user data policy.

Facebook’s gone on to acquire virtual reality hardware manufacturer Oculus and drone manufacturer Ascenta in the last six months. The company recently released its new Slingshot app to encourage users to become more social in real time and to compete with swiftly-disappearing text message app Snapchat, not to mention maintaining apps such as Facebook messenger and the core Facebook app. This week, Facebook’s Instagram leaked a new one-tap photo messaging app called Bolt before pulling it from the Google Play Store.

Facebook has a 1 billion user base that’s growing by the day, and the company’s commitment to mobile advertising shows that maybe mobile’s its forte. It turns out the Facebook doesn’t need the Facebook Phone (whether the HTC First or some other) after all.